1. FIELD OF INVENTION
This invention relates to chute cleaning tools and is particularly directed to tools for scraping and cleaning the chutes of concrete trucks and the like.
2. Prior Art
The transportation and delivery of concrete and the like in mixer trucks is a major part of today's construction industry. Many such trucks can be seen each day traveling to or from construction sites or delivering concrete to wheelbarrows or molding forms at the construction sites. As is well known, these trucks carry the concrete in large rotating mixing drums, which are part of the trucks, and deliver the concrete by means of delivery chutes which are pivotally mounted on the trucks and which, when needed, can be swung into position to guide the concrete discharged from the mixing drum to the desired delivery point.
Once the concrete has been delivered, a major part of the driver's job is to wash the truck, including the delivery chute. It is extremely important that this washing be done promptly and thoroughly after each delivery, as soon as the delivery is completed, because any concrete which is not removed quickly will harden and become impossible to remove. If even trace amounts of concrete are allowed to remain and harden, they interfere with the flow of future deliveries and tend to gather additional amounts of concrete until the accumulation requires replacement of the delivery chute. Obviously, such replacement is very expensive and careless cleaning of the truck and delivery chute is a common cause for driver dismissal.
Despite the importance of frequent and thorough cleaning of the delivery chutes, no tools have been proposed heretofore specifically for accomplishing such cleaning. In practice, drivers have used water hoses to flush the residual concrete off of the delivery chute and truck. Concrete trucks always carry water tanks to provide water for mixing with the concrete to maintain the concrete is a semi-fluid condition during transportation. Whatever water is left in the tank, after delivery of the concrete, can be used for cleaning. Unfortunately, large quantities of water can easily be consumed in such cleaning and substantial additional water is wasted in the process. Furthermore, water is quite heavy and carrying excess water on the truck significiantly increases fuel costs and, hence, erodes the profitabilitiy of the operation. Thus, the quantity of water carried in the truck tanks is closely monitored and is frequently insufficient for adequate cleaning of the chute and truck. Additional water may be available from other sources at or near the construction site. However, water is very often in short supply and, even where such additional water is available, some more rigid means may be needed to remove stubborn or partially hardened quantities of concrete. Heretofore, drivers have employed shovels or brooms for this purpose. However, brooms are too flexible to remove semi-hardened quantities of concrete and shovels are not configured to fit the contour of most concrete truck delivery chutes. Thus, these devices have been only partially successful and no tool has been previously proposed specifically for this purpose. Another problem which the concrete truck drivers face is the fact that excess water remaining on the delivery chute, after the cleaning operation, must be carefully removed to prevent rusting of the delivery chute which, again, can necessitate costly replacement of the chute.
A search in the United States Patent Office has revealed the following patents:
______________________________________ Patent No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 3,858,267 A. Swannie Jan. 7, 1975 4,380,840 I.L. Rieckenberg Apr. 26, 1983 4,422,206 A.W. Brace et al Dec. 27, 1983 4,542,553 A.P. Cary Sep. 24, 1985 ______________________________________
The patents to Swannie and Cary disclose scrapers for roof gutters. However, these references do not contemplate the problems inherent in cleaning concrete truck delivery chutes and, consequently, are only of general interest. The remaining patents located in the search are less pertinent. Thus, there appears to be no satisfactory prior attempt to provide a tool for cleaning concrete truck delivery chutes.